China Southern Airlines Review

Did you know… If you have a long, over-night, layover with China Southern Airlines they will provide you with a hotel for the night?

The first time I fly with any airline I don't get my hopes up too high. Especially if they are selling tickets for a very cheap price. But with China Southern Airlines I was nicely surprised!

It is all quite basic - similar to a Ryanair or Jetstar layout - but the food was good, they kept on time to schedule, the staff were really helpful and amazing... All of which is unusual for a more budget airline.

We also had a surprise during our lay-over......

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We flew from Chengdu to Urumqi, arriving around 7pm in the evening and thinking we will just sleep in the airport for the night. However, we wanted to go into the city for some food, and taking our bags with us was not an option as each one weighed around 20kgs.

We arrived at baggage claim and I waited for our backpacks as Reggie went to ask around for where to leave our bags. A lady explained that we can leave them in the airport overnight, just talk to the guy under the red lights… We find this mysterious man and explain our situation. In broken English he asks for our flight tickets and starts tapping away at his computer.

A couple of minutes later he says there is a hotel for us, that a minivan will take us to. We explain we don’t want a hotel, it’s too expensive, we would rather stay in the airport… He then explains that the hotel is free.

Free?

Free.

The hotel night is free. We can’t believe our luck! We just go with it, not sure what will happen next, whether they will spring a surprise fee on us later. But, sure enough, theres a minivan outside waiting for us and who drives us to a 3* hotel close to the centre of the city. We leave our passports and head out to find some food.

Our journey takes a while as we get distracted by many interesting and beautiful things in Urumqi (I will explain this in a separate, up-and-coming, post). By the time we arrive back at the hotel it’s 11:15pm, so we shower and go to bed…. We then receive a call at 11:45pm asking if we would like massages………….. We turn this wonderful offer down.

At 5:15am we get a wakeup call and by 5:50am we are at the front entrance, wondering if they will spring a surprise fee on us… They don’t! We get our passports back, get a free breakfast bag of goodies, and off we go to the airport!

If we hadn’t asked, we would never have known this free night was part of our deal and would have spent a much less comfortable night in the airport.

So to conclude:

- China Southern Airlines are amazing

- Check flight details carefully for this kind of information (it didn’t say on ours)

- Don’t assume there isn’t a free night in a hotel!

Thank you China Southern Airlines!

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